Jasminum auriculatum

Twelve ways of seeing

• measured cast yellow-green
• upright 1.55 : 1
• published 1818
• Plate 64

Not a catalogue entry but a way of looking: how to stand, what to notice, how the line was cut, when it flowers, where it came from, who made it — and then the poems and the classics that taught China to see the same flower. Read the twelve in order and the plate opens.

1. 01

   First Look

   凡画山水，意在笔先。

   —— 唐·王维《山水论》

   In painting, the intention precedes the brush.

   The sheet is vertical: the eye climbs and settles in the upper half. Let the plant stand before you look for detail. Then step in close: watch where colour meets line, and whether the line ever breaks. Third, find where the yellow is deepest: the whole tonal order is measured from that patch.

2. 02

   Name and Thing

   The binomial is Jasminum auriculatum: the first word is the genus it belongs among, the second the epithet that sets it apart. Two words carry a whole provenance. The Chinese name 星星茉莉 is a modern rendering of the Latin, not an old garden name.

3. 03

   Form and Colour

   Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 9.0% of the sheet, foliage 6.3%, the cast yellow-green with a second note of amber. No other plate shares exactly this measure. A botanical plate: one plant lifted from field or glasshouse and set at the centre of the sheet, root, stem, leaf, flower and fruit in turn, made legible, citable, transmissible. Filed under yellow — a honey-yellow, built in washes from a pale ground. Read the outline, then the colour layers, then the brush.

4. 04

   Composition

   Tall and narrow, the plant rising in one movement with generous margins — the upright format of most floras. (about 1.55 : 1) No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 16% of the sheet, centred near the centre; the emptiness is where the eye rests. Blank paper is not unfinished work: it is where the eye rests.

5. 05

   Line and Colour

   The first half of the nineteenth century moved from copper to steel to lithography; stipple could render the softest transition. Take a loupe to three places: petal edge, leaf vein, caption. An unbroken line means engraving; colour crossing the outline means a hand.

6. 06

   Season

   Plates usually record flowering, the fortnight when a plant is most identifiable; the rest of the year it is only a mass of leaves. The year 1818 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. The best time to read such a plate is its flowering season: three minutes under the tree explains what no text can.

7. 07

   Provenance

   Various: local hillside or a plant brought from overseas. The nineteenth-century botanic garden and glasshouse were their first address away from home. The localities on the plate are those of a century ago; plants travel and places change their names.

8. 08

   The Book and the Hand

   “Flora Italiana” was drawn by Gaetano Savi and published 1818-1824. This plate is Plate 64. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.

9. 09

   Poetic Resonance

   天地有大美而不言，四时有明法而不议。

   —— 《庄子·知北游》

   Heaven and earth have great beauty and do not speak.

   The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the yellow the corolla becomes its resting point.

10. 10

    The Written Tradition

    六法者何？一、气韵生动是也；二、骨法用笔是也；三、应物象形是也；四、随类赋彩是也；五、经营位置是也；六、传移模写是也。

    —— 南齐·谢赫《古画品录》

    The six laws: spirit resonance alive; bone-method in the brush; matching form to the object; colour according to kind; planning the placing; transcribing and copying.

    China had the Bencao Gangmu and the Illustrated Study of Plant Names and Realities; Europe moved from herbal woodcuts to chromolithography. Both trusted pictures to finish what words could not. Keep the line; it will surface the next time you meet the same plant.

11. 11

    Symbolism

    The symbolism of such a plate lies not in flower lore but in record: the belief that a plant deserves to be drawn accurately — the plainest ethic of the scientific age. This plate leans yellow, which in flower language adds one more degree of feeling. Meanings change their tune: the same flower can say opposite things within a century.

12. 12

    What to Take Away

    Carry three rules away: whole before detail; line before colour; picture before book. The flower of that year is dust, yet its image on paper has outlived every living cousin.